It's my very great pleasure to announce that I finally have audiobooks now available for FIRST FLYGHT, BROKEN FLYGHT, and HIGH FLYGHT! And on my 10-year blogiversary, no less!! Happy 10th birthday, blog!!
A few months ago, I decided that I should just take the time to make my own audiobooks since I wasn't sure if I was ever going to be able to afford them. It's looking like I'll be able to put my new grant money towards audiobooks on future series, but that leaves my current series without them, and we can't have that.
Instead of narrating the audiobooks myself, since I'm unqualified to do so, I went the AI-generated audio route. I did a lot of research and ended up making my audiobooks with Amazon Web Services's Polly text-to-speech app. Now, this is not a pump-your-text-in-and-automatically-get-good-audio situation. I had to put a lot of work into making these sound good and easy to listen to. I had to learn SSML, a markup language for speech, and X-SAMPA, a phonetic alphabet for speech pronunciation. I had to tell Joanna (my Polly voice) how to say words like Flyght (it is not ‘flit'), Belem, klutziness, raposquirrels, Brazilianos, and so on. Then I had to proof every chapter and make changes to things like dialog tags and pauses and stutters. I had to tell Joanna when “tear” was a tear from someone's eye (a noun) and not a paper torn in two (a verb). Sometimes I would spend an hour figuring out how to say just one word!
Ultimately, I listened to and tweaked every chapter at least twice. Some more than three times. Then those files had to be mastered and mixed properly, which I had to learn on the fly with Garageband and Audacity. And then I had to figure out how to sell them! All in all, this was a monstrous task for me. But I got it done.
I also started up a whole new email sales funnel newsletter just for my direct store. That was also a challenge as I figured out how to also use Zapier and Encharge, and hook it all up to Bookfunnel for people to download and listen.
It's the biggest task I've taken on in years, bigger than even building websites and switching over my cozy mysteries to a pen name last year.
I'm so excited to be bringing it to you today! Let me give you some details…
- These books are not available for sale anywhere else but my direct store. And when you buy from my direct store, I'll send you a 25% off coupon for any future purchase you make! AI-generated books are currently not allowed on the major stores like Audible and Google Play. I hope to upload them to Eden Books later this year when I have more time, but for now, you can only buy them direct.
- You can listen to FIRST FLYGHT entirely for free on Youtube! Yes, I uploaded the whole book there for you to listen to. Go for it.
- Want to just listen to some samples to see what they sound like it? You can listen on each book's page. Check out FIRST FLYGHT's sample.
- Want to just buy it and own it? You can buy the first book for only 99¢. The other books in the series are $5.99, less than a WhisperSync audiobook via Amazon. That way you can take it with you, speed it up, slow it down, save it for later. All files are delivered via Bookfunnel and can be listened to on the Bookfunnel iOS or Android app, via a browser, or even downloaded. I did not put DRM on these files.
There are more audiobooks to come! I'll be working on one per month until the Flyght Series is done. Then I'll be giving the Nogiku Series a makeover and that will get audio as well. I'll work my way through all my books until I have them all done.
I will also be adding more audio to Youtube too. Anything that's audience appropriate will go there. Due to the romantic and sexy nature of my books, I can't put them all there. Most of my first books are appropriate for Youtube, so I'm sure most will go there, if not more. Please subscribe to my channel so you can get more free audiobooks in the future.
I'm now off the blog for the rest of July. Have a great month everyone!